Morse Theory of Attractors via Lyapunov Functions

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the Morse theory of attractors for semiflows on complete metric spaces. First, we construct global Morse-Lyapunov functions for Morse decompositions of attractors. Then we extend some well known deformation results in the critical-point theory to Morse-Lyapunov functions which are only continuous. Based on these works, we finally introduce the concept of critical groups for Morse sets and establish Morse inequalities and Morse equations for attractors.